Interesting article on n00b usability

[Derek Broughton]

Charlie Kravetz wrote:

> On Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:05:04 -0300
> Derek Broughton <derek at pointerstop.ca> wrote:
> 
>> His complaints about update-manager leave me completely in the dark.
>> I've used Windows update - it's practically identical.  It tells me
>> (a) how many updates I have; and (b) not enough about why I'd want
>> the update.  

This did make me think that the upgrade-manager should have a button to let
the user check the changelogs for his changes. That really wouldn't help
the average user, but it would then mean that he had vastly more
information about the upgrade availabe to him than Windows would give.

>> The big difference is that Windows will usually insist 
>> on rebooting twice.  Yeah, I hate that it required manual
>> intervention to upgrade to 8.10 too (I was automatically told about
>> the upgrade from 7.10 to 8.04, why not give me the option for 8.10?)
>> but where did he get the idea that Windows is easier? Windows would
>> have made me buy and install a new CD.
> 
> This one struck me as a bit ridiculous. My former employer was forced
> to upgrade to Windows XP when the software was upgraded to use it. It
> also cost him a new computer since XP would not run on the old
> hardware.

That's a good point which we also don't make enough of in introducing Ubuntu
(or in fact Linux in general) to newbies.  Pretty well any hardware that
was ever supported by Linux, and is still in use, is still supported.  A
few things get lost, I'm sure, but on the whole our support for older
hardware is incredibly good.

-- 
derek